Month: June 2020

Day 58 of the End to End in 2019 was the official half way day. Somewhere on a rural road in the Howgill fells, reclining on a bench, I was officially half way. During the walk I followed in Quaker footsteps, enlarging on some of the names and places I mentioned yesterday connected with this area, most particularly Brigflatt Meeting House which dates from 1675.

However, the most important thing about Day 58 was that I had three lots of ice cream in the day. Now that’s what I call the new normal. There are things I forgot about LEJOG but it’s not usually ice cream. There had been a few 3 ice cream days, but not for a while. However, I can’t remember if there were ever days in which more than  3 ice creams were consumed.

Farming ice cream has been a great spin off for walkers like me. Surplus milk which no longer demands a fair price in the shops, gains value when made into ice cream. Of course it means a lot of investment and it also creates a few jobs and in addition is very tasty. So here’s to ice cream: the New Normal. Or will that just melt away, back to the old useless normal, like virtual voting for those unable to access the Houses of Parliament?

I remembered visiting the House of Lords in 1993 for a meeting of the Association of Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalus. Baroness Masham told us some interesting stories about the accessibility of the House from the point of view of a wheelchair user. She was determined but there are other ways of doing New Normal.

Normal is actually a fairly unhelpful word some of the time. I’m not normal and probably never have been, for lots of reasons. Too often normal is used as a means of exclusion and marginalisation. What you set up as normal defines what is pushed out and marginalised and that in turn can evoke resentment, frustration and anger. It’s not a society I want to be part of.

I want to be part of an inclusive, diverse and accepting society in which each person is valued and given opportunity to thrive, nurtured by the community together, whatever their differences. But I fear, we’re not yet half way.

From the remembered bible
Blessed are those considered different and who accept that differences of others; may they be welcome everywhere as models of the kindom.

Of course some will say I am making the bible up again (sigh), but I think that’s better than holding it up outside a church for a photo opportunity.

Crucified Christ, visited with violence, body torn, bleeding, dying,
you hung on for us,
each agonising breath its own torture:
may we hang on for and with each other,
naming the need to breathe as basic as justice,
crying out for the traumatised ones.
Only your love can make the new normal
the place where difference flourishes.

JAL: 03.06.2020 in Longdendale.

Day 57 of the End to End in 2019 was the half way point in distance. It was in the Cumbrian hills and a good place to revisit radical steps. A Roman milestone in a churchyard, a flight of steps in a small market town, footpaths, bridleways and small rural roads: each one tells a story. The first, how routes make an Empire, the second how steps challenge an administration, the rest confirmation that ways around and across and how we travel them are still important, economically, politically and poetically.

We were staying at a large barn outside Sedbergh. We later found out that George Fox had visited the farm of which the barn was a part. George Fox and Margaret Fell were the founders of the Quakers, in the 17th century in the North of England. There are plenty of Quaker landmarks in these parts.

Quakers believe the equality of all people, as radical a belief in the 21st century as it was in the 17th. Their main activities are in human rights, social justice, freedom of conscience and peace. But they are not mouthy people preferring the worship in silence. At the time of WW1, when the conscription act was passed in 1916, they negotiated an exemption for Quaker men. It didn’t quite work out as they had planned. Having claimed it for themselves, others, quite rightly, then asked for it too, both on religious and political grounds. In addition it is estimated that about one third of Quaker men did fight under arms (many more were non-combattants). One was Arnold Wynne who moved from a pre-war pacifist position, to die on the first day of the Battle of Arras in 1917. In all I have found out about him, I’ve not managed to piece together that transition. But he would not be the first to find that the rules made for him no longer applied, for whatever reason. Perhaps he thought being exempt unfair.

The Quakers are just some of those who have taken, and still take, radical steps. I’m sure you could name others in the age of global upheaval and challenge. It’s not unusual for anyone designated radical to attract criticism or contempt or even violence. Those who guard the status quo do so diligently.

From the remembered bible:
‘Who’s head is on the coin?’ Jesus asked.
‘It is Ceasar’s’, was the reply.
‘If it belongs to Ceasar, give it to him, but give God what belongs to God’ Jesus said.

There are no coins showing your head, God of all,
making it easy for us to omit to give you anything at all.
Remembering those who have taken radical steps
for equality and human rights, social justice and peace,
recall us to your way.
May you Spirit help us interpret the times,
firing us up to challenge in equality and injustice,
equipping us to work for peace.
Anger may give us away, we may loose sight of the goal,
the steps may be hard and the way long,
we may be nowhere near half way,
but in your company we will keep the faith:
may your kindom come.

JAL: 02.06.2020

 

 

 

Day 56 of the End to End in 2019 was my last on the Lancaster Canal. This was the last canal in England for me and I wouldn’t walk alongside a canal again until the Great Glen.

The Lancaster Canal in its present form is interesting for its un-naviagable Northern Reaches. Tewitfield is the terminal  junction for boats. Beyond that you can walk although the route encounters plenty of challenges. The main one is of course the M6. We were able to see it up close, and this would continue the rest of the way to the Scottish border. I went under a bridge, I followed a foot path and I spotted various culverts, all signs of the M6 effect.  There was a large sign saying M6 on the other side of a fence. I see it whenever we go North on that motorway. Now we were standing along side it, on the safe side of the fence.

The safe side of the fence, is a comforting concept. It’s not one I’ve been very good at in my life. Indeed ‘fence sitting’, a common occupation in churches, is always one I’ve found as uncomfortable as any posture I’ve encountered. We are called to be active interpreters of scripture and our times, and in any context this doesn’t usually point to fence sitting.

For some time now one subject has been on my mind: the rise of human intolerance. I still meet people who tell me they’re not political and I understand that it is a difficult mix, but I cannot except that the bible and politics are not related. I follow a radical Jesus. I met this Jesus in Apartheid South Africa in the 1980s. I rediscovered this Jesus in the UK on my return and I have made it my choice to listen out for and follow a call to be along side those on the margins of society, wherever and whoever they are. Sometimes this has lead to some seemingly incongruous choices like the one to do RB in an Independent School (see https://sacredtexts.hcommons.org/using-the-remembered-bible/ )

It was a place in which children and young people needed to be able to encounter the radical nature of the gospel, not it soporific alternatives. Along the Northern Reaches of the Lancaster Canal, with traffic pouring past behind the fence, a walker is faced with choices. But once a walker, always a walker. And once a follower of Jesus, that Jesus who demonstrates a preferential concern for the marginalised ones, always that follower.

From the remembered gospel: Jesus said ‘Follow me’.

I follow you, Calling One;
through the political ins and outs of your day and mine,
along the highways and by ways of ecological change and choice,
through the cities streets where hope and despair live side by side,
across the meadows and hills of isolated rural poverty and distress.
I see the fences, cutting us off from each other.
I listen again; some fences need cutting, bringing down:
human beings belong together.
May your kindom come, may justice and peace reign.
I will continue to follow you, Jesus.

JAL: 01.06.2020 in Longdendale.